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Subscribe to RSSVideo recorded by survivalist Peter Keller reveals his mindset before he killed his wife and daughter then committed suicide. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
BURIEN, Wash. -- Before he killed his wife and teen daughter and retreated to a remote bunker in Washington's Cascade Mountains, Peter Keller recorded a chilling video explaining his mindset: He was bored.
"It's getting to the point where just trying to live and pay bills and live as a civilian and go to work, that just freaks me out," the 41-year-old survivalist said in a video clip released Thursday by the King County Sheriff's Office. "It's actually more comfortable for me to think about living out here, robbing banks and pharmacies, just taking what I want for as long as I can. At least it'll be exciting."
Keller shot his wife, Lynnettee, and his 18-year-old daughter, Kaylene, at their home in North Bend, east of Seattle, in April. He set canisters of gasoline on the kitchen stove, turned it on, and headed to a fortified, camouflaged bunker he had spent the past eight years building into the steep, thickly forested slope of Rattlesnake Ridge. King County sheriff's detectives spent days trying to figure out where he was.
They narrowed down his hiding spot with tips from the public, who had seen Keller's red pickup at the Rattlesnake Ridge trailhead; a photo taken from the bunker that showed outlet stores in the distance; and the work of trackers who saw his boot-prints in the muddy ground. Keller killed himself as dozens of SWAT officers moved in — an outcome he predicted in his video.
Keller, who believed the end of the world was near, had dubbed his bunker "Camp Keller," according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
PhotoBlog: Images show heavily fortified bunker of Wash. murder suspect
Sheriff Steve Strachan said Keller shot himself on the bunker's top floor before falling to the lower level, the Seattle Times reported. Officers found a radio beneath Keller's body, suggesting that he had been monitoring news reports, the Times quoted Strachan as saying.
The King County (Wash.) Sheriff's Office released this nearly 10-minute video made by survivalist Peter Keller, who authorities say killed his wife and daughter before committing suicide as SWAT units moved in April, on Thursday.
'At least it'll be exciting'
Looking down into a handheld camera, with his head wreathed by evergreen trees and the blue sky, Keller stated flatly in the video: "If I get caught, I'm just going to shoot myself. I could be dead in two weeks or three weeks, I don't know. It's all up to chance at this point."
He added: "I do have my escape and it's death. Shoot myself. I'm OK with that. ... It won't be boring and I won't have to worry about Lynnettee or Kaylene. Everything'll be taken care of. It'll just be me."
The Post-Intelligencer cited investigation documents that showed Keller was controlling with money, which led his disabled wife to borrow cash from family members.
Lynnettee, who often stayed home and was a scrapbooker who posted scrapbooking videos on the web, had previously told relatives that her husband had established "fairly sizable" savings, the Post-Intelligencer said. She thought they were going to be millionaires when he retired, the newspaper reported, citing investigation documents.
The sheriff's office said it was releasing the video now because recent forensic tests recently proved that one of Keller's guns was used in the murders. There were no other suspects.
In a news conference, Strachan called the video "breathtaking in its evil." It suggested that Keller had planned for weeks, months and maybe even years, to kill his wife and daughter, the Seattle Times reported.
Body found in bunker believed to be that of Peter Keller
Strachan also announced that tens of thousands of dollars was found bundled in the bunker, though he declined to specify how much. Lynnettee's family announced that they would use the money to establish a scholarship fund in Kaylene's memory (www.kaylenesfund.com ) for women who attend DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, where Kaylene had hoped to study video game design.
A tense standoff in Washington state ends after a man who was a suspect in the deaths of his wife and daughter is found dead in a bunker he had designed for the 'end of the world.' NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.
"The family didn't really find there was a problem with Peter," said Lynnettee's twin brother, Gene Rocha. He described Keller's relationship with his daughter as loving.
"We'd go there for holidays and it was like every father-and-daughter relationship," he said. "She'd look at her father and say, 'Daddy, can I have this?' And he'd say, 'Sure.'"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Another "real man" killing his family and then, too cowardly to wait for the law to deal with him, takes his own life. Wow! where is a real man when you need one?? Oh, if only there were really a hell....he could be there with the rest of his "heroic" counterparts who've done the same, David Powell among them.
Hittler among them. If there was a hell, this guy would be in line to get rapped by Adolph himself. Too bad hell doesn't exist.
Hell does exist. You see, we are in hell now (hell on earth) as you can see by this article any many more. When you die "then" you go to heaven.
People like this moron, stay here in hell. It's called "purgatory".
Just my opinion.
Have a nice weekend.....
I thought hell was being in your brain with all of your space aliens and government secrets CreekTrog?
Loon-E-toons!!!!!
Take me to your leader! :-)
Missed you man!
Vacation? Took a ride to Mars myself. Where'd you go?.......Purgatory?
Aruba....a bit windy but totally relaxing.
Niiiiiiiiiiiiice............A drink in your hand & your toes in the sand.
The Mars sand stained my feet a little red but it washed off somewhat. :-)
What a piece of @!$%# @!$%#. He took one of our gamers and future member of the game development community. Who knows what kind of talent we missed.
Calling that mentally insane fella a survivalist is a discredit to even the idea of survival.
Turning himself into a mental hospital before he hurt anyone including himself would have been an act of survival.
This snake in a grass should have just taken his life and left his family alone. Why the hell don't these wackos just leave others alone and go die off in misery by themselves?!
Another batsh*t insane survivalist who either traumatizes his family or kills them.
I'm sure hell will be just as exciting for you Keller. Have fun rotting there.
how can he be "SURVIVALIST" if he cannot handle simple task like "work" ?
the ''survivalists'' are fear driven people. they live in a state of paranoia -someone or something is out to get them. they create a world that they can't live in. if he truly believed the ''end'' was coming why so much preparation for survival? i have seen animals with no injuries die because of extreme fear. fear is debilitating and in extreme cases can cause these insane actions. i think he was insane. his victims needed to be protected from this man--so sad his wife and the 17 year old daughter had to die for his madness.
Serious mid-life crisis. He could have packed his bags, leave to some sunny place in Europe and start a new life.
God bless the victims.
Survivalist?????
Why that term to describe him when this guy obviously didn't expect to survive?
Why not use terms like lunatic, madman, or insane?
MSN printing this to give survivalist a bad name or what? It must be a plot by the lefties.
Butch: I agree w/you. I was thinking the same as I watched it. This is the mindset of a lunatic.
As for saying "gun control" anyone who believes that should remember that if you take away guns from the people who do obey the laws of gun control who is left w/weapons? Hmmm. Criminals. They will get them. Law abiding people will not break the law to have them. Guns have been a part of my families life for generations & noone I repeat noone has used them to kill another person or threaten another person. EVER!
So close your eyes & imagine all the criminals in the United State w/weapons & the rest of us w/out the opportunity to have them. No thank you.
bla bla bla
you gun huggers are annoying Too !
when will you people get it? Trying to sell your gun kool-aid on news stories about more gun violence DOESN'T MAKE YOU PEOPLE LOOK GOOD ...DUH
What a selfish, ignorant man. Just because he was bored with life and "believed" the world was going to end, did not mean that his wife and daughter were of the same mind set.
If there is a hell that is where he went. To say the man was mental and did not understand what he was doing is the most ignorant idea to date. He was just plain mean and maybe even evil.
Yeah...he just waited 41 years to show how mean and evil he was.
*Tip For You Steven* - Survivalists do not act this way. Don't be afraid should you meet one of them.
I thought this was going to be another Ted Nugent article.
What scares me is that this suggests that any average joe can just snap and destroy his or her entire life.
I'm aware this happens, but when they upload their messages to places like Youtube and Facebook... it's scary.
Yet another sad story. We seem to be getting way to many of these kinds of stories these days. It would seem to me that a normal rational person could not do something like this. He must have been suffering from some kind of mental instability. I only say that because I can't understand it. Very sad indeed. Thoughts and prayers for the family.
Tea bagging and gun hugging .. sounds like a bunch of sex and violence (¬â¿¬)
stick a tea bag in it Paula-1386942 you people are so annoying !!
Perhaps the media should stop harping on "end of the world" scenarios. Obviously everyone's not capable of discerning truth from fiction.
MSN needs to look up the dicitionary differnece between survivalist and lunatic there is a difference. Shame however we cannot get all criminals of his kind to follow his lead. Think of the money taxpayers would save a year on the cost of trials and supporting them inprisons for the rest of their natural lives.
3 cheers for Heterosexual marriage right???????
That wife and daughter of his had people that loved them and he decided to take them away from those that loved them. What a loser.
One less turkey in the flock. Have to laugh that his midlife red truck led to his demise. Guess he wasn't as smart as he thought.
alot of people confuse survivalist with something weird or bad. survival training and knowlege is just that, how to survive in the wilderness with just knowlege of what to eat and what not to eat and how to build shelter and start fire and so on. It has nothing to do with hurting anyone else. As a matter of fact if worse came to worse in our world some of these people would be pretty nice to know if you got hungry. The reason these people are played up when one of them is on the run is because they supposedly can manage in the woods for months or years without any outside contact or support. there are many T.V. shows now that portrey these skills. As far as this 'fortified shelter' this nut built, it looks like something some teenage boys would did and stock. Its muddy and damp and is not fortified much less heavily fortified. It would be miserable place to be for very long. I think of Dick Poennke when I think of successful survivalist. He lived in Alaska for 30 years doing everything himself and by hand. I think these may be very uselful things to know as the world we live in seems to continue to detriorate.
Yeah Right.. Who wouldn't want to be yanked out of life to go live in a dirt hole sealed up with CRAZY DAD.. nothing weird or bad about that (º_º)
@primenumbers - This man is clearly the exception among survivalists, and should not even be called one. His odd, but harmless hobby did not drive him to kill his family. He was clearly mentally unstable in some way, and deserved what he got. So stop making stereotypical generalizations. It seems like that is all anyone is doing these days on Newsvine threads.
If we could only figure a way to convert crazy into energy... we'd have enough power for all eternity.
That is a seriously good line.
It's true that middle class life is a hopelessly boring and unfulfilling form of thinly disguised slavery.
But when you realize this, don't do what this guy did.
Just become a hippie.
It is only boring and unfulfillable if you make it that way. Some of us learn to care enough for others that our work, our labors, and our hearts are fulfilled by making our lives and the lives of others more joyful!
Popeye, you seem to think that unless a person is rich there is no happiness to be found. That's pitiful. I'm sorry for you. And I hope you seek some counseling.
How do you think this guy started off heading toward this sad conclusion? His video gives a glimpse into the years leading up to this horror. He says he was "freaked out" when the thoughts first came to him. But he kept thinking about it. Apparently he wasn't able to talk himself out of this sick plan and instead turned toward making it his main reason for living. It appears he took many years to reach the conclusion that his life was going nowhere and he had no purpose. Sound familiar?
You need to see a psychiatrist or get some kind of therapy so you don't end up in that state of mind. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That's what this guy did. Sick and selfish person that he was. He decided his family had no choice in the matter because why?... they were too much of a burden and his selfish soul wanted a way out. A weak and selfish man, sick and twisted. May have been insane but we will never know.
He wasn't a survivalist. He was not playin' with a full deck. He was living a fantasy life as a "hero". He became frustrated when the excuse to get involved in combat with the goobermint didn't happen. And maybe his family told him they were sick of living that way. So he made them the "enemy" and lived out his fantasy. But before people start blaming the guns, he'd have done the same with a machete, crossbow, or whatever he had handy. At least he finally did the right thing and administered the appropriate death sentence.